This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
PARIS.
233

bank of the Seine is the Jardin des Plantes which is not only a garden open to the public but is also a famous place of instruction in the Natural Sciences. Jardin des Plantes.It contains a Botanical Garden which rose to importance when the illustrious Buffon was appointed director in 1732. The great Humboldt added 3,000 new specimens to this department in 1805. The Jardin also contains galleries of Natural History which are the completest in Europe, and close to them is the gallery of comparative Anatomy founded by the immortal Cuvier. There are also a Gallery of Zoology, one of Geology and Mineralogy and one of Botany, besides a library, an Anatomical museum, &c., &c. Gratuitous lectures are delivered here by eminent men on scientific subjects.

We have now finished our rapid survey of Paris, beginning with the two islands in the Seine and then traversing the north and the south banks of that river. But an account of Paris is not complete without some mention of subterranean Paris if I may so call it. The wonderful drainage system of Paris is unique in the world, and branches into a hundred ramifications underground as the streets of Paris branch in all directions above ground. And the vast catacombs of Paris,—also unique in the world,—contain the skulls and bones of about twenty millions of human beings, and stretch for miles together, like a city of the dead, under the city of the living!

The underground drains of Paris are lofty arched Drainage.passages running for miles and miles together in different direc-